Book Text modern

Albertina was a typeface ahead of its time. It was in the early 1960s when designer Chris Brand, an accomplished calligrapher, aspired to draw a typeface based on the principles of calligraphy. Unfortunately, typesetting machines of that era put many restrictions on designers. Characters had to be drawn within a very coarse grid, which also defined their spacing. Technological limitations meant... Read More

Rudolph Ruzicka designed his font Fairfield as a legible text font. His philosophy: "The reader expects optical assistance with reading. He does not want to be distracted while interpreting and understanding the ideas of a text." Fairfield font is based on the forms of Venecian Old Face fonts as well as on the designs and details of Art Deco, giving the font a distinctive appearance

ITC Galliard font is a work of Matthew Carter and a contemporary adaptation of Robert Granjon's 16th century design. "The result was not a literal copy of any one of Granjon's faces, more a reinterpretation of his style," says Carter. ITC Galliard font captures the vitality of Granjon's work in a graceful, modern typeface. eText fonts - the optimum of on-screen text qualityWith our new eText... Read More

Claude Garamond (ca. 1480-1561) cut types for the Parisian scholar-printer Robert Estienne in the first part of the sixteenth century, basing his romans on the types cut by Francesco Griffo for Venetian printer Aldus Manutius in 1495. Garamond refined his romans in later versions, adding his own concepts as he developed his skills as a punchcutter. After his death in 1561, the Garamond punches... Read More

Haarlemmer is a recreation of a never-produced Jan Van Krimpen typeface that goes one step beyond authentic: it shows how he wanted it to be designed in the first place. The original, drawn in the late 1930s, was created for the Dutch Society for the Art of Printing and Books and was to be used to set a new edition of the Bible, using Monotype typesetting. Hence the problem: fonts for metal... Read More

Maclean's is a weekly Canadian newsmagazine with a broad editorial mission. A typical issue covers everything from violence on the other side of the globe to the largest pumpkin grown in a local county. In 2001, Maclean's invited Rod McDonald to become part of the design team to "renovate" the 96-year-old publication. The magazine wanted to offer its readers a typographic voice that was... Read More

From alphabets created for book illustrations in the 1970s to lettering created for a book jacket in the 1990s, the Mentor family of typefaces has developed along its own slow and circuitous path. Always present in its evolution, though, has been the influence of three 20th century design giants: Eric Gill, Reynolds Stone, and Hermann Zapf, as filtered through the meticulous sensibility of... Read More

It was only after seeking the help of fellow type designers Christian Schwartz and Kris Sowersby that Erik Spiekermann was able to fashion a suitable serif companion to his most famous sans, FF Meta. Rather than pasting serifs in place, the process took starting from scratch until a face appeared that looked and felt like a Meta, but that functioned more like a traditional seriffed text... Read More

FF Parable is a versatile text face designed with small text sizes (between 6 and 10 point) in mind, which makes it perfect for dictionaries, bibles, or any medium that requires a robust letterform, such as newsprint. FF Parable has low stroke contrast, making it sturdy and adaptable to many circumstances. It has a proportionally large x-height. This means that it appears larger than many other... Read More

FF Parango is based on a typeface Xavier Dupré designed during his studies at the Scriptorium of Toulouse, a revisiting of past work. Loosely based on the proportions of the greatest of French Renaissance faces, those cut by Claude Garamond, Dupré’s personal interpretation explores the French style “with its alternating narrow and wide letters.” Using soft angles and low stroke contrast, it... Read More

FF Tisa designed by Mitja Miklav quickly became a new-millennium favorite of graphic designers, in print as well as on the web. Its large x-height and sturdy, well-spaced forms aid its legibility at text sizes, while its low stroke contrast and range of weights allow it to successfully function at larger sizes as well. Since the designer considered wayfinding systems a potential use for the... Read More